The Spartan of Ballast
by SharktasticSarah
Summary: The UNSC is wracked by a fiscal crisis in 2567. In order to maintain full military mobilization despite the crisis, an emergency austerity budget is put into effect, slashing non-military expenses while cranking up the taxes out in the colonies, who lack a say in the UEG. Finding a hero in Jennifer-G/090, a Spartan with a grudge, the colony of Ballast makes its voice heard.
1. Prologue

Jenny legs pumped off the surface of the bomb, and she felt the contents of her stomach lurch towards her toes, and the blood rush to her head. Even when she had pushed right off the center, the tiniest bit of rotation left her cartwheeling slowly. She always hated EVAs. Unfocusing her eyes to prevent the nausea, she felt her rotation start to slow. Confused, she glanced to her HUD. Her armor was using its ability to shape its energy shields as a way to make little reaction wheels all over her body, spinning away, slowing the spin down. With a bit of a guffaw of delight, the Spartan marveled at this final surprise her pilfered suit had in store for her, peppering her with minuscule feathery lightningbugs.

It was beautiful, but admittedly, it felt kind of pointless. That bomb would end her spinning either way in about two minutes. Noticing that said bomb lacked the rotation stopping mechanism she did, and that it was pirouetting off into the distance, she felt some sort of satisfaction. Like she made the warhead puke or something. It made no sense but it helped her feel better in a senseless, spiteful sort of way.

But the spite evaporated as she got a good look at the view. Exhaling slowly, she couldn't help but feel a little choked up. Even in an age where space travel was a mundane affair, seeing the gentle curve of one's home was deeply moving. The gentle coiling of rainclouds, deep blues and greens and browns and yellows etched with the thin reflective black of the glasslands. She could even see Port Anthony start to glow as the streetlights came on for the night, the elevator and drydocks sticking out like a thin cobweb against the city.

They had done it. They had taken the best hit that the UEG could throw at them, and they were still standing. And now ONI's racket was imploding in a hail of colonial boycotts and mass uprisings. Her adopted home had done the impossible. They had won.

And in that moment, she realized that was why she had fought so hard for it. Not the rush, not the revenge, just the fact that it was home and it deserved better and she could help.

Jenny liked to imagine that this was a her planet saying goodbye. One final, beautiful view of Ballast in all her glory. Her hand rested on the hardcase at her thigh, where her wedding band was.

Then, there was a white flash. Her visor polarized but it did no good. The shockwave hit. Everything went from white to black.


	2. CHAPTER I: WITH ATË BY HER SIDE

CHAPTER ONE

WITH ATË BY HER SIDE

Jenny twirled the silver ring around in her fingers for a moment, debating. She couldn't wear both it and the black undersuit at the same time. Chewing on her lower lip, she tried to figure out if maybe she could put it on her dog tag chain or something when she caught a flash of blue out of the corner of her eye. Supernatural reflexes brought her hand up to catch the metal object before she could even process what she was catching.

"Put it in that." It was an almost comically dusty hunk of synthetic alloy that had been wasting away in the closet for awhile. It took a moment for her to realize that it was her old hardcase. It was just about the only bit of armor she hadn't shed in the Battle of Ballast.

Smirking over at her wife, Jen plunked the silver ring into the hardcase and commented "That's why you're the brains of this operation, luv."

She took a moment to stare at the gangly brunette who paid most of the rent. Her Elle. Her better half in more ways than one, who had been there for her since she limped into that subway station, who offered an anchor after Jenny had been cut adrift, who got her fake papers and a job. Most importantly, Elle talked Jenny out of the darkest moments of a pretty dismal life, and made her feel important at a time where Jenny had felt so toxically expendable. This plasma-scored hardcase brought back memories of that.

"Yeah, but you're the guts." Elle quipped back, helping Jenny seal the back of her bodysuit. "That's why I'm staying home and you're going out."

"You know how to use my gun, right? If things get really...Shit-" The Spartan grunted as the suit constricted, feeling a little tight in the waist and chest. After nearly a decade, some softness had crept in. Or perhaps she just wasn't used to having this old thing on. "That's snug."

"It's neuro-reactive, it's supposed to be snug." Elle sighed and clapped Jenny on the shoulder, moving back to the bathroom to brush her teeth. "And yes, I do. I still think it's ridiculous you aren't taking it."

"Just a big protest. Probably won't need a weapon." Jenny didn't need to turn while she put her street clothes on over the undershot to _feel_ the glare. She had gone to all the trouble of washing her old bodysuit, getting the reactive gel recharged, and even had stowed away an old steel pipe she was planning on bringing along _as a weapon_. Everyone knew that this was going to get rowdy, especially after the police took off their helmets and actually joined the march on the governor's office last week, and the earth-appointed governor had to flee via gunship. But there were other concerns. "Besides, if this goes really sour, I'm worried about looters hitting this place. I want you to be safe."

"I want you to be safe too." She heard more rummaging and turned around, only to see Elle holding _it_ in her hands. Something caught in Jenny's throat. She hadn't worn it since the battle, and buried it deep in storage where she purposefully couldn't find it. It was a gut churning reminder of what she used to be, of what she was.

It was a simple, brutalist thing, deserving more of a number and serial code than a name. Mark V OPERATOR-UA3 assigned to JENNIFER-G/090. An inhuman, soulless collection of wires and sensors packed behind a monocular, amber visor and shaded by an armored peak. It was her face for so long, an extension of self like the sword of a samurai. But this particular sword was cursed, and made the warrior forget where the steel stopped and the soul began. Jenny hesitated. What if she put it on, and Elle flashed red? What if Jenny herself got that light crimson outline that told her to kill? She could stop herself, she knew that much, but getting the impulse to kill her own wife would be too much to stomach.

Reading the anxiety and nausea on Jenny's face, Elle walked over and looked up at Jenny. At a whopping 220 centimeters, the supersoldier towered over the pharmacist, who held the helmet up. "I know, you don't want to put it on, but if you're gonna be out there heckling helljumpers, you'll need all the head protection you can find."

"Elle, its not just a helmet its… its…" Jenny rolled her shoulders anxiously, wincing. "It's more than headgear. Its a... Hell, its my past. I'm not that anymore. I haven't been that for a long time."

"I don't care, Jen! You're massive, your head sticks up above everyone else's, and all I can think of are those stories you tell me about snipers hiding in the buildings and-" Elle was making it very clear that this was not up for debate, and that as much as she supported Jenny going to the protests, it scared her how dangerous they were getting.

"Sh sh sh… Hey, okay. I'll put it on. I'll put it on." Jenny wrapped her arms around Elle, kissing her on the forehead. "I'll be safe."

"Just… Promise me you'll be safe, okay?"

"Okay. I promise, I'll be safe."

It took awhile for them to finally release each other, and when they did, Jen dutifully took and donned the helmet. The thing hadn't been calibrated in ages. All she got was a lonely, pale blue cross in the center, and a flickering to life of the small lifesigns readout. No orders, no commands, just a faint smell of windex. She was so scared this thing would eat her essence out like some sort of vampire, when in reality it was just a helmet. Sealing it up along her neck, she was dragged back down by the jacket for a small peck on the rebreather plate by Elle, who declared "You look sharp, luv. Now go get 'em, but for the love of god, don't do anything stupid?"

"I won't, I won't!" Jen was starting to actually feel a bit bubbly. She had just crushed a major fear of hers, and was about to go give those bastards at ONI a piece of her mind. That sure as shit was something to smile about. She even gave that metal pipe of hers a flourish as she passed, twirling it in her hand before letting it snap to one of the magnetic hardpoints on her back, usually used for holding the cuirass in place. She was delighted to find it stuck even though the utility-orange and grey bomber jacket she was wearing over it. It was strange. Only just now was she realizing that it kinda matched her helmet. Some sort of subliminal directive, or maybe she just liked the color orange. She should have looked in a mirror before she stepped out.

But there had already been enough delays. She jogged down the three flights of stairs to the front door of the apartment, getting a gaping stare from the dentist who lived across the hall as he collected his mail in the lobby. Enough fooling around. She had a bone to pick with the office in uptown. Maybe it was all the better for her to not have anonymity in the crowd. Maybe it was better for them to know that the ghost of the Spartan they screwed over was coming back to haunt them. Certainly made Jen feel good.

Also lifting her spirits was the turnout. She lived almost twenty-five blocks from downtown, and even there, a steady stream of people were crowding the sidewalk on their way to ONI's central office. By the time she got to within seven blocks, the whole street was almost shoulder to shoulder packed with people, with some off-duty police officers opening locked-up businesses to relieve the pressure on the street and prevent a crush. Everything was closed today. It was almost 6pm on a Sunday evening, and anywhere that would have been open had closed in the face of employee desertion.

It wasn't surprising. The protest was an open secret, defying attempts to stop large gatherings by organizing on ChatterNet instead of the closely-monitored Waypoint. Jen had heard about it though RaYdeio, a popular social media platform whose servers were hosted in the Kig-yar home system of Ydeio and far out of reach of prying ONI surveillance algorithms. Internally, she lamented being unable to get her infofeed on her helmet display, but it couldn't be helped.

She noticed a few people gaping at her, which then ballooned into a ripple through the crowd as she walked down the street with them. Most had never seen a Spartan in real life. Let alone one walking just to their left. Finding herself walk a little straighter, Jen picked up the pace. She was uncomfortable drawing attention to herself, and cut her way forward through the crowd. It was grousing increasingly unruly as she pressed through the crowd to the sandbags and warthogs that the army garrison had erected across Henry Boulevard, hoping to keep the crowd away from the ONI Central Office. The office, an irregular black monolith of a building that towered over them all from the end of the street, only five blocks away from where the soldiers had planted their defense. The crowd, for its part, was keeping its distance from the sandbags and hocking bits of asphalt and trash at the soldiers, who were being thoroughly demoralized. Chants of " _ITS YOUR PEN-SION"_ reminded these soldiers that the United Earth Government's recent austerity was resulting in some painful cuts to go with the colonial tax hikes.

With ease that came with the natural parting the of the crowd around her, Jen made her way to the front, where veterans of the war were hurling foul jabs at the picket of soldiers milling behind the division. There wasn't even a good reason why, her mind just… tugged for her to run towards the heat instead of away from it. Maybe it was the helmet, the boiling tension in the air, or the sight of military kit, but those years of childhood drilling and psychological reinforcement made her _need_ to me in the thick of it. Her stomach did a frontflip as her mind rebelled, and yet her feet carried her forward, feeling that slight high that came when the adrenaline started to course through her system. So she pushed out into the front.

She noticed that near the center of the road, a small delegation from the crowd was negotiating with the lieutenant in charge of this little fortification. This delegation was led by a relaxed, gracefully balding, gaunt man in an overcoat far too nice for this occasion, and a far younger redheaded woman that was visibly laying into the lieutenant. It didn't help the knot in her gut when the lieutenant suddenly locked eyes on the helmet she wore and pointed. He radioed something in on his helmet while the gaunt man waved her over, much to the shock and annoyance of the redhead.

There was a moment of hesitation. Really? She was being singled out? She didn't want to be singled out. Spartan or no, she wanted to blend in with the crowd. So she shook her head and put up a hand, signaling _I'm good, no thanks_. But again, the gaunt man waved her over. This time, she noticed people pulling out their communicators and snapping pictures of her being waved over. Anxious, she sighed and broke ranks, walking over to the little meeting. If she wasn't going to blend in anyways, then might as well make the most of it.

Getting up next to the group, she started noticing the increasing alarm of the Lieutenant, who had darted back into his command post. She could probably imagine the conversation going on behind that soundproof helmet. _Do we have a Spartan out here? No? Then who is this seven-two giant staring down at me right now?_ She smiled despite herself. There was something satisfying in being able to wander up to an armed soldier and get him to squirm without saying a single word. Yesterday she was another disgruntled manufacturing worker. Today she was a Spartan, swagger and all.

"Joseph Fairfax." Jen's head snapped over to the gaunt man who just spoke. The old man had a hand out, and was smiling pleasantly up at the Spartan. It took a moment for Jen to process that he was interacting with her and not the Spartan. He wasn't commanding, he was welcoming, and certainly wasn't some stooge working for the UEG.

Still, she felt the need to give no more information than her old designation, especially with the Lieutenant inearshot. "Spartan Jennifer. Are you in charge here?"

"In a sense. I'm the Lead Director of the Ballast Provisional Government." He smirked a bit. So he most certainly _was_ in charge here. The Ballast Provisional Government, or the ProvGov, was the group organizing these protests, and basically ran the rural parts of the planet unchallenged after they negotiated an end to a planetwide mine strike where the Colonial Government could not.

She gave his hand a firm shake. She could work with this Fairfax. Hell, the pages she followed on RaYdeio were run by the Directory he led, so she already was working for him in a roundabout way. Clasping her hand between both of his, he added "Pleasure to be working with a Spartan again. I served at Fumirole, Earth, and Installation Zero, so I've seen the good work you folks do." He released her hand and fished into a pocket, producing a plastic card. "Oh ah… Here's my card"

"Unbelievable, only you would want the goosestepping robots here." The redhead who spat out the words glowered at Fairfax, her scarlet curls nearly as red as her enraged cheeks. She looked like she would spit on Jennifer at any second. Upon further inspection, the redhead was a walking insurrectionist stereotype. Red bandana on her neck, gadsden flag stitched onto her military-surplus jacket, a slight smell of booze that indicated either a stash of molotovs cocktails in her backpack or a continuous state of inebriation that resulted in her current political views.

Jennifer wasn't going to take that in silence. Looking back to Fairfax, she asked "Who's wannabe Lenin?"

"Er, this is my colleague, Lucy Collins. She's ah-"

"Director of Interior Defense. And frankly, as the woman in charge of your muscle, I can say definitively that I don't need the help, Joe." Director Collins seemed to be talented at turning Jen's excellent mood immediately sour. Maybe it was a pole up her ass, or maybe it was just pride, but either way, Collins seemed to be flinging exactly the sort of bullshit Jen didn't suffer.

"Well, since you don't need the help, I'll just-"

"Now just hold on here…" Fairfax hadn't given up just yet, and he seemed to take the immediate step of grabbing the two belligerent women by the shoulders and calmly working out their differences for them. "Whatever personal baggage you have with the Spartan program isn't helping us in the here and now, Collins. You know as well as I that we need all the help we can get. And frankly, I'm delighted that a member of that program see's our point of view. Now.. I'm not proposing that we make her a director or give her a command or anything like that, I'm just saying that Jennifer… Jennifer, right?"

Jennifer nodded and Fairfax continued. "Jennifer can do plenty to help us."

"Help us by doing what? Joe, she's a _spartan_. They brainwash spartans. Put chips in their head to control them." Collins was having none of it. She saw Fairfax as a fool for even suggesting that Jen get involved, and was even gutsy enough to look at the visor glaring down at her and taunt "What's are you gonna do, Jennifer? Rat on us? Shoot us from behind? Sing the praises of the UNSC and regale us with some old propaganda war stories? Come on, tin-tits, what are you gonna do?"

At that point, Jen decided to show this fire-breathing imp exactly that. Marching forward and shouldering her way past Collins, who exclaimed something incoherent and loud, she strode up to the army lieutenant and grabbed him by the shoulder, turning him around. Visor glaring down at him, she growled "I'm going to ONI. You're in my way. You move you, or I move you."

The trooper, who was probably as pale as his gaping subordinates under that riot helmet, swallowed and stammered "I…. w… Where can we even go?"

"To the rest of your Regiment?" Jennifer suggested.

"They're at the Space Elevator, guarding the naval yard." That complicated things. Between here and the elevato was the increasingly impatient mob.

The Spartan looked down at her feet and folded her arms, thinking. Then, she had it. "A block north, on Tyler Street, there's a commuter station. Trains aren't running today, so you could just walk your way down to the main terminal at the elevator. You won't be able to take the heavy vehicles, but I'm pretty sure you can load up the mongooses and fit them down the handicap ramp."

That got the lieutenant to step back a bit. Glancing around, he saw his men all staring at him, waiting for instructions. This wasn't what they had signed up for. They wanted to be fighting terrorists or covenant remaint. They wanted to protect people, not fire on protesters. Simply put, this little concrete and sandbag roadblock just wasn't a hill worth dying for.

"Okay… Okay, but you have to wait until I've got everyone out. I have a couple guys with concussions, and a sniper team that's gonna take a while to get moved. Maybe fifteen minutes. Until then, I'll move one of the trucks and let the pressure off and the crowd through" The lieutenant looked at Jen, who nodded and clapped him on the shoulder. She watched him radio something in, and one of the APCs that formed the makeshift wall pulled off to one side, clearing about two lanes. One of the soldiers got up on the edge of the new opening and waved for the crowd to move through. Soon enough, a torrent of protestors was streaming into the gap and over the sandbags, a great cheer going up as they flooded across the checkpoint.

Turning on her heel, Jen walked past to the two directors, flew a pair of rude hand gestures at Collins, and declared "I'm gonna do that!"

Before the thoroughly livid Collins could respond, and before Joseph could properly finish his belly laugh, she had merged back in with the crowd. Oh yeah, this was shaping up to be a pretty excellent day, and she hadn't even cracked any skulls yet.


	3. CHAPTER II: FIRE-EYED MAID

" _TAX THE EARTH! TAX THE EARTH! TAX THE EARTH!"_

" _NEW GUN, NEW SHIP! THEY PAY IT FULL, THEY PAY IT QUICK!_

 _NEW SCHOOL, NEW TRAINS! THEY CALL IT GREED, AND YOU INSANE!"_

" _No rep!" "NO TAXES!" "No rep!" "NO TAXES"_

" _OH-EN-EYE, ESS-PEA-WHY ON SOME OTHER GEE-YEW-WHY!"_

The chants were great, but Jen's favorite part was the heckling.

" **You are ordered to disperse!"** " _Yeah, I'd like to order a number seven with extra ranch-"_

" **Curfew is now in effect, please return home!"** " _Awwww! But I'm out with friends right now, Mom!"_

And the best part was the ONI didn't seem to know how to handle it. Tear gas had been fired briefly but after discovering that all it did was filter the best equipped protesters, with masks and weapons, to the front while injuring less extreme protesters in the ensuing churning of people. Already ambulances had been called in, and the crowd let them through, but otherwise, wasn't going anywhere. Night had fallen, and people were breaking out fusion coils to power phone chargers. The protest was quickly settling into a siege.

That was just fine with Jen. She was having a hell of a time watching panicked spooks flit around the windows, while the ODSTs out front looked increasingly fatigued. She really loathed the helljumpers. The bastards were the most loyal, best equipped, best treated members of the UNSC military apparatus. This made them a locus of everything she hated about the Office of Naval Intelligence. They were too stupid to ask questions, and too smart to voice opposition. When some poor schmuck publishing unflattering data about ONI was made to vanish, there were always a couple of pod-jockeys slinking around.

She started getting that itch. That old itch.

It was hard to describe it to outsiders. She heard it was even hard to describe to the new Spartan-IVs. But everyone in Gamma platoon, and even the survivors from Beta and Delta that trained them knew it existed, even if they didn't know what it was. The itch. That need for violence. That need to solve a problem by decking it in its fat face. Elle said that it was part of the conditioning that Jen had been given as a child, programming that made her enjoy slaughter, and see a lethal fight as fun. And Jen really had thought she had grown out of it. She had Elle to pull her back from the ledge, to hold her and talk her down.

But today was different. This wasn't just an itch. Well, maybe it _was_ , but at least now there was a pretty good reason for it. Those ODSTs were starting to get fed up with the bottles and cans thrown at them. It was only a matter of time before shit went down.

Jen checked her in-helmet time. BTC-18:48 , which was the middle of the night for Ballast's almost twenty-two hour-long day. They had been sieging the ONI offices since just before sunset. Quick mental math meant that the office had been under siege for three-ish hours, which was certainly enough time for them to contact ONI HQ on Earth and get a gameplan together. They'd want to attempt a breakout, and they'd likely want to do it soon before the outside water and electricity got shut off. Which meant that they were probably gonna attempt that breakout soon.

It didn't take a genius to spot where it was gonna be. ODST's slowly started to mass on the east garage entrance, trickling in from other sides squad by squad. It made sense. Ram through the crowd with submachine guns blazing, then drive away to the safety of the space elevator. The ODSTs could never defeat the whole crowd, but they might defeat one part of it if they massed their strength. It was called _defeat in detail_ , and it was a trick so old that Napoleon named it.

But that also meant that it was so old that its flaws were known. Namely, that massing strength in one spot made weakening defenses in every other spot. And like, that, Jen had a plan.

Weaving through the crowd, she spotted Collins in all her ostentatiously insurrectionary glory, organizing her men. The group was very well armed. Admittedly, it was with surplus kit from the war, but old guns were just as lethal as new guns as long as they worked. Walking up, the spartan could hear that Collins knew the play that ONI was going to run, and was responding accordingly. "Alright, so I want Charlie and India squad to move to the garage right now, and I want Kossuth team up in that apartment complex providing sniper cover. If we get more movement, I'll need the reserve squads to come out by that…"

"Collins." Jen could wait to be addressed in most cases, but this was pressing.

"Bite me, buckethead." Collins returned the rude gesture they had parted with, and went back to her troops. "As I was saying-"

"Only after we storm the office." That got some attention. The group turned to face the hulking behemoth that joined them. Using the chance, Jen continued "Look, you don't like me, and I really am starting to not like you, but we got the same goals, the same enemy, and we both are smart enough to know how they're planning to bust this party up. I got a plan. At least hear me out."

Collins glowered at her, crossing her arms. Deciding that the spartan might have some value, if only to mock, she replied "Alright then, let's hear it."

"I still can't fuckin believe I agreed to this." Director Collins was standing to Jennifer's right with an M7 tucked under that scarlet cowl. Scattered throughout this part of the crowd were Juliett and Kilo squad, along with Green-2, a Ballast Police SWAT team that wanted in on the fun.

" 's a good plan." Kilkenny, the sergeant in charge of Green-2, agreed over the radio. "Don't 'ave muchova follow up, buttttt I think we'an figure it out."

"Sarge, you know you really suck at this pep talk thing, right?" Sweets, the shield-bearing officer on Jennifer's right, mouthed off back. Normally, Jen would see this and unprofessional, but it was a fairly innocuous way to blow off the stress of waiting. And the waiting was almost over. The second to last squad had just transferred to the east side, leaving the northwest lobby, the entrance Jennifer and her little cohort were looking at, guarded by only five ODSTs.

The itch got to be too much. Tapping her foot, cracking her knuckles, they were doing anything.

Screw it.

She was gonna do it.

Sweets nearly lept out of his skin when Jennifer put her hand on his shoulder, pointed to his riot shield, and asked "Can I borrow that?"

"Uh…. y-yeah, sure?" The confused officer handed the shield to her, and showed her how to put it on her left arm. He then panicked when she pulled the pipe off her back and pushed her way forward. "Hey! Wait! This isn't-"

"I know the plan. I'm going now. Green-2, get a bead on the sniper on the third floor." She strode confidently out of the crowd while her radio erupted.

"Third floor catwalk, I see-"

"Shit, right now-?"

"Safety off, we're-"

"Now?" Collins' voice cut through it all.

"Yeah, now." Jennifer felt that rush of adrenaline, and then, that glorious high. It was a beautiful feeling. That warmth flooding across her chest that radiated out to her extremities like a match dropped in gasoline, then bounced back with an icy menthol tingling that crackled from her fingertips in like lightning in a blizzard. It was indescribable. Jen knew it was fucked up, to have this reaction simply from the knowledge that she was about to fight like hell. Jennifer, though, didn't care. She wanted to crack some skulls. Scratch that itch.

The ODST's lined up across the breadth of the door and raised their rifles.

Scratch that itch.

The lead one shouted for her to stop.

Scratch that itch scratch the itch scratch the itch scratch…

She was told to halt immediately. To get down on the ground. To stop now.

...scratchit scratchit scratchit scratchit scratchit scratchit...

The fingers went to be triggers, her riot shield came up over her head

...scratchitscratchitscratchitkillitscratchitshreditscratchitscratchitwinitscratchitscratchitscratchitfinishitscratchit-

 _BWANG-BANG-BANG!_

Everything clicked. She saw herself move, knew she was moving, then directed the instinct. It was a combination of reflex and processing. Mind and muscle moving together, whirring and clicking like an ancient clock, each part precisely perfected and placed to propel every other part, a machine designed and tested a thousand times, a machine that knew what it was built for: victory.

The three shots from the lead ODST ricocheted off the shield as Jen moved from her saunter into a full charge. She closed the gap before he could get off a fourth and brought that pipe in her hand up under his chin. Hard.

She brought the shield down in an arc wide enough to catch the corner of the trooper to her left who staggered back but was far from down. That was fine, because her next target was the ODST to her right, the one with the shotgun. The pipe came down on his right elbow as he was turning to bring that shotgun to bear. The shot went wild, away from Jennifer, and the audible _krRUNCHle_ meant something certainly was broken now. Dropping the pipe, she brought that same hand up, grabbed the barrel of the shotgun, and was about to tug it from his hand, when the second ODST regained his footing.

So she threw her shield at them, impacting their rifle and sending about a half-dozen rounds into the sidewalk. The shotgun she was holding fired again, but her grip managed to direct the fire near the feet of the fourth trooper, stalling his fire for a precious half-second. Her now free left hand punched the trooper to her right in the visor, and yanked the gun out of his hand.

While she preferred her dominant hand and proper stance, she could certainly fire lefty from the hip. The second ODST went down with a round to the chest. The fourth spun like a top when the buckshot slammed into their shoulder. And the third, still on the ground from that punch, drew his knife, she rewarded him with a one-handed, behind the back, blind shot she didn't even bother to aim. She heard him drop the knife and howl, and was pleasantly surprised to see his thigh shredded.

Turning to the concussed ODST leader whose jaw she had liquefied with her pipe, she prodded him in the chest with her shotgun and ordered "Hands. Now."

The leader hesitated. Then a shot rang out, and his sniper dropped out of the rafters of the lobby like a ton of bricks. At this, he groaned and raised his hands.

" _ATTAAACK!_ " Suddenly, a great shout was unleashed behind Jennifer, and Collins, to her credit, led the charging reserve group into the building, guns cracking off wild shots of alarm. They stormed the lobby, running past the Spartan and stacking up on doors.

Jen wasn't about to be left behind. She grabbed Sweets as he passed, gestured to the ODST at her feet, and while she bent over to pick the bandoleer off the howling kneecapped trooper, told the cop "Watch this one, yeah?"

"Uh… yeah, you got it Jen." The police officer gave a little grin and unhooked some handcuffs from his belt to make the job a little easier. Jen left him to it and strode confidently into the lobby, fixing her grip on her shotgun. When she approached Director Collins, the Spartan asked "Objectives?"

"We'll secure the upper levels and handle the goons outside. You go to the lower levels and try to secure the servers and city AI before they get shredded." The rebel paused and added "Try not to get to beat up, buckethead."

"Yes ma'am." She was loathed to say it, but it was automatic. Someone tossed a ball, and she was compelled to fetch. She stopped for a moment, intent on telling Collins no. Instead what came out was "Try to get the pole out of your ass while I'm gone."

She meant to say no. She should still say no.

Oh, what the hell.

She liked playing fetch, anyways.

Especially when firearms were involved.

With a gleeful cackle, she began loading shells into her shotgun one at a time. She missed this. The weight in her hands, the adorable little _kli-glunk_ of the springs and plates in the shotgun's loading mechanism as it gobbled the little red shells in her bandoleer down, the coiled tension in her body, all of it was like a bag of ice on inflamed, itchy skin. She stepped into the lift at the end of the hallway and stopped, suddenly thinking of something.

Elle. She should call Elle. Let her know she was okay. She fumbled with the phone in her pocket as she tried various restricted floors, and found the elevator uncooperative. Humming, she put her phone on the top of the elevator control box and ripped it open to attempt a bit of hotwiring. Ali was always better at this, but she had picked up a few tricks from her stint with Team Halberd's resident tech wizard. She was reminiscing when the ringing stopped and Elle breathlessly said "Jen, Jen oh my god. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah! I'm doing great, how are you?" She knew her voice was sounding a little breathless.

"I'm fine, now where the heck are you?"

"Uhh…" Well, the truth would be showing she was breaking her promise and doing something phenomenally stupid. "With some friends."

"Jen… Jen don't tell me you're in the ONI office."

"Elle, elle, I'm fine. I'm armed."

"With what!? Oh my god, Jennifer you _moron_! You should have taken the gun! Wait, what am I saying, you shouldn't even _be in there_!"

"Oh, uh, I have a gun on me. Don't worry." Jen cringed behind her mask. She walked right into the next question.

"Where did you get a gun?"

There was a pregnant pause as the elevator shifted and began to descend. The best excuse she could give was "Found it?"

"Jennifer-"

"Elle, listen to me, I'm having a blast. I'm okay. I'll fight smart and be home by 2200." Jen sensed the silence she caused and added a heartfelt plea. It really just came stammering out unbidden. "This is the most fun I've had since our honeymoon. I… I'll come home if you really really need me to but… Just… Please. Let me do this. I need to do this."

There was a long pause, and a deep breath on the other end. "2200. I'm holding you to that."

Jen's heart sored, and then sank when she heard the sniffle on the other end. Picking up the phone, she tried her best to comfort her wife. "I'll be okay. I still got your ring. 'S good luck, yeah?"

"Yeah okay… Be safe."

"Always." The elevator dinged. Three floors from where the server room probably was, but hey, she could take the stairs. The door opened just as she saw a marine pull the pin on a grenade from the end of the hallway. In one swift motion, she pocketed the phone, hung up, and dove for cover "Gottagobye!"

The ground shook as he interior of the elevator was obliterated. Glass from the office walls around her blew apart in a hail of gunfire, huge shards crumbling to the ground around her as she stayed prone on the ground. She was gonna run out of cover at this rate. So, she had to hunt for more. She spotted a conference room about 150 meters to her right, and scrambled for it. No heed was paid to the glass walls between her as the long flat stretch of wood. Putting her head down and clutching her gun close, she shoulder-tackled her way through the office, letting the reactive undersuit and helmet absorb the impacts. She looked like some sort of phantasmic football player, galloping through the offices and clearing desks like they were hurdles. Sliding into cover and flipping the table over, she had a moment to breathe.

She had been shot.

There was a moment of panic, before she noticed that the hit was at the thick belt of armor in the shoulder. Ruined a good windbreaker, and it stung like a motherfucker, but the layers of bioreactive kevlar and crystal latticework stopped penetration. Panic was replaced with annoyance.

Jen heard a squad attempting to flank. A retort from her shotgun gave them second thoughts. Two squads of infantry. The first dug in on the far end of the room providing overwatch for the second, who would flank and flush her out. This position was untenable. She would lose the initiative and be reacting. So, she decided to give the flanking squad a surprise. Putting her shotgun on the ground, she crouched and got her hand under the single large pylon that supported the now-sideways. Bracing with her other hand, she gave it a mighty heave.

The flanking squad saw a huge table spinning through the air at them and scattered. Jen blew two rounds at the only one still upright, and charged at one who had dived for cover. The marine on the ground got one round off before her fist put him down. When she found that the marine she just dispatched had an M395. Oh, the Designated Marksman Rifle, the Martian mistress of misery.

 _BUCHNK_

 _BUCHNK BUCHNK_

 _BUCHNK BUCHNK_

Five shots, three marines down. Four if the one she decked counted. Sloppy, but after a decade of pushing mops, she'd take it. Inhaling sharply, she rose, knowing she could do better. Ducking and weaving through office furniture, she unloaded rounds downrange, towards the overwatch team. The darkness of the office made each gunshot feel like a thunderclap in the middle of the night. This time, moore of her shots were wild. Jen thought she got one in the leg, maybe another in the chest armor. Really a mess, but the point was to spook them. Reloading, she heard the team leader shout "Fuck this, fall back!"

"But sir, the servers-"

"You wanna die for this hill, you go right the fuck ahead, Lee. But it is my professional fuckin opinion that these spook secrets ain't worth dying for. Come on, suppressive fire, lets get outta here!"

Jen grinned, and then flattened to the floor. Those ARs opened up with another hail of lead to cover their escape. If the marines wanted to tuck tail, she was more than happy to let them. After a sufficient time had passed, she popped her head up and scanned the room. It seemed she had run of the place.

In a few moments, she was flying down the steps to the server room. Confidently striding towards the center, she got one started look from the AI, who took the appearance of a cartoonish 22nd century Ganymedean privateer, before she yanked his core from the terminal. And like that, ONI's secrets were one ChatterNet uplink away from becoming open secrets.

But ONI was not gonna go that easily.

Jen discovered that four floors up, when an MG nest ambushed her in a hallway on the way to the freight elevator. But now she was running hot, well-armed, and feeling that adrenaline coursing through her. The frag grenade she threw was a perfectly-pitched fastball that dug its way into the sandbags and sent the defenders sprawling. Her rifle rounds took out the lights, then took out the CO, and like that, she sent the marines scrambling even farther into the recesses of the office to regroup. She was so caught up in the moment that she forgot to check in until she was on the elevator. Tapping the side of her helmet, Jen was surprised at how chipper the sound of her own voice was. "Collins! I got the AI Core and I'm headed up to the freight dock now. If you've got a squad, I can head down and get the server room secure."

"Negative, negative! Go to the parking garage! They've got a-" Collins was cut off by a massive blasting sound. "-fuck! They've got an APC with some sort of railgun on it! The freight elevator should drop you right behind it!"

"Uh…. Uh, alright. Parking garage, on it." Jen tapped the console and rolled her shoulders. Finish one mission, take one target, and get another. Just like like the good old days.

Behind her helmet, Jennifer-G/090 smiled.

The lobby of the ONI office had turned into a bit of an impromptu party. Someone had busted into the PA system and was playing Haitian funk, and an Irish pub down the way was supplying the mob with booze to, ironically, prevent property damage. Jen was happy to just lounge on the edge of the lobby balcony and be on call in case Collins encountered a pocket of resistance she couldn't clear out. That, and keep an eye on the three handcuffed naval officers sitting a little to her right.

That's when she spotted an old man making his way through the crowd, escorted by one of Collin's armed guards. Joe Fairfax. Sitting up, she watched intently as the leader of the Provisional Government climbed the steps. Instinctively, Jennifer stood. He had given her this shot, and given her a chance to win this victory, to be a spartan again. She would treat Director Fairfax as a senior officer. Snapping to attention, she noticed the ONI officers she was guarding look confused, until Fairfax flashed a winsome grin and chuckled out a dismissive "At ease, Jennifer."

Then the officers paled. The rebels had a loyal Spartan in their ranks, and that changed the whole ball game. And, to Jennifer's surprise, Fairfax seemed to agree. The corners of his eyes crinkling with a humble smile, the old director said "Collins will have my hide if she hears me say this, but we couldn't have accomplished what we did today without you. I know it's probably trying to get back into that helmet after all you must have been through, but I deeply appreciate it, and I know they do too." The old man gestured to the drunken party and mild looting going on below, and then offered his hand. "Thank you."

"I… Thank you sir." Jen took his hand and gave it a firm shake. Maybe it was the moment she was being swept up in, or maybe it was just the aura of charisma Fairfax gave off, but Jen could feel her heart swell a bit. She had made the world a little better today, and it was… odd. She hadn't really gotten much of a chance to interact with the people she helped back in the war, and so all the good she had done felt nebulous and distant.. To turn that abstraction so concrete was a little overwhelming.

"Now, I've got a job offer for you, spartan. And a bit of a gift, if you take the position." Pocketing his hands, Fairfax let his eyes twinkle a bit with mischief. The same sheen he got when waving her over a few hours ago.

Jennifer mulled it over for a moment and asked "What sort of gift?"

"That jacket is nice, but I think you need some proper armor. My associate at the Ballast branch of Lethbridge Industrial happened to find a set of Gen2 Mjolnir that was sent in for repair. And now its being sent here, to Port Anthony. I think you'd be able to use it better than any of us."

"No way…" Jennifer thought she might drool. "What variant? Do you know? Oh god, please tell me it's not one of the dumb ones that look like a pop can grew elf ears."

"ANUBIS-variant is what he told me." Joe rubbed his chin to hide his smile. They both knew she was hooked now. "Now, I understand if its not-"

"I'm in."

The declaration hung in the air for a few moments. Jen added "I… I'd like to sleep at home with my wife, but I'm in."

Fairfax clapped her on the shoulder, having to reach up to do so. "I'll see you tomorrow at the downtown cathedral. 1230 work?"

"Sir yes sir!" And like that, Ballast had a spartan.


End file.
